Thursday, February 2, 2017

News: 33 New titles added to Ancient World Digital Library

This January a selection of 33 newly-digitized volumes was added to the Ancient World Digital Library (AWDL),
containing both high-quality scans of public-domain content as well as
more recent publications released through new partnerships with
publishers and academic organizations.

The recent additions include the first volume in a new partnership between AWDL and ISLET-Verlag, a Dresden-based publishing house founded in 2002 by Cornelia Wunsch.
ISLET specializes in publishing cuneiform archives, economic and legal
texts, and other Assyrian and Babylonian materials. The first volume in
the series “Babylonische Archive”, Mining the Archives, is now viewable in AWDL. More volumes from ISLET will follow.

Lastly, the new additions to AWDL include 25 public-domain
volumes, primarily on Egyptological topics. These titles, several of
which have long available in low-quality scans from sources like the
Internet Archive and Hathi Trust, have been completely re-digitized for
AWDL. These high-quality scans will prove far more useful than what has
been digitally available until now, particularly for titles like Beschreibung der aegyptischen Sammlung des niederländischen Reichsmuseums der Altertümer in Leidenthat include photographic plates.

As always, titles in AWDL can be read online in full resolution or
downloaded in either high- or low-resolution PDF format. In addition to
searching for titles, you can also find titles by using the AWDL Atlas, a browsable map of all of the titles available on the AWDL site; by browsing for topics under the “Collections Overview” tab; or looking at individual series in the “Series” tab.

The primary focus of the project is notice and comment on open access material relating to the ancient world, but I will also include other kinds of networked information as it comes available.

The ancient world is conceived here as it is at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, my academic home at the time AWOL was launched. That is, from the Pillars of Hercules to the Pacific, from the beginnings of human habitation to the late antique / early Islamic period.

AWOL is the successor to Abzu, a guide to networked open access data relevant to the study and public presentation of the Ancient Near East and the Ancient Mediterranean world, founded at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago in 1994. Together they represent the longest sustained effort to map the development of open digital scholarship in any discipline.